I opened up my daily verse the other day and immediately began to sing a song that my kids learned in Sunday School. It began, “O be careful little eyes what you see, O be careful little eyes what you see, For the Father up above, is looking down in love, So, be careful little eyes what you see.”
The song goes on from there to remind children to be careful with their ears, tongue, hands, feet, heart and mind.
The verse for that day was from Psalm 16:8 and it was delivered in the NIV translation. “I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
I looked it up in my HCSB Bible and it read just a bit differently. “I keep the Lord in mind always. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
When I looked a little further, I found that the word translated as “my eyes,” and “in mind,” literally means “in front of me.”
We have often heard the saying that “the eyes are the windows to the soul,” meaning that often a person’s emotions and vulnerabilities can be seen in the eyes. But this morning, as I read the verse and sung that little song in my head, I realized that windows work both ways. You can see in through them, but you can also see out through them.
The world may see through the eyes into the soul, but as the Psalmist and the song reminds us, we can take the world into our soul through our eyes. We need to be careful what we view with our eyes. We must always keep our eyes (and minds) on the LORD so that we are not “shaken” by this world.
